Inka Grings spent her first national holiday as a trainer in the cold. August 1st is traditionally celebrated in Switzerland with fireworks, yeast braids and everyone “barbecuing”, as goalkeeper Seraina Friedli reported. In the cold of Dunedin, the southernmost venue of the World Cup, where the Swiss women had settled for the first weeks of the tournament, fireworks were not appropriate, but still: A sliced meat and rösti were served. National holiday should only be Saturday.
For the second time since 2015, the national team from Switzerland is in the round of 16 at a World Cup, and for the second time she is being coached by a German: Eight years ago it was Martina Voss-Tecklenburg who narrowly lost to the hosts at the time, Canada. Now it’s her former teammate Grings who is playing against Spain in Auckland on Saturday not only for a historic first quarter-final for the Alpine nation, but also for the greatest success of her coaching career. The question is whether she herself would define it that way.
In April 2019, Grings started something even bigger and began a new episode in German football when the regional league team SV Straelen introduced her as a coach. One of the former best German strikers with coaching experience in the women’s Bundesliga should coach a fourth division team. Historic news, something like this had never happened before. Grings wanted to break through the woman-trains-man wall with all his might.
“Unfortunately, at the moment it is primarily based on gender and not on performance,” Grings once said in an interview with the Rheinische Post. She asked for an “honest chance” and didn’t hesitate to clearly express her great ambitions: “Whether it’s in the first or third division doesn’t matter.” In the end it was Straelen, she stayed for a year and two months, and left with one down and one up. Was that the historic breakthrough success? Probably not – whether the Rhineland province with the influential club boss Hermann Tecklenburg, the husband of Marina Voss-Tecklenburg, was the right place for such historical breakthroughs remains questionable.
Only two goals in three preliminary round games – that’s always zero at the back
A successful stint at FC Zurich finally brought Grings back to the meanwhile larger stage of the Women’s World Cup, with which she still has an unfinished business: she was European champion twice, but she was left out of the German World Cup victory in 2007 because the then National coach Silvia Neid did not call her. In her active career, Grings was never considered a simple teammate – and even as a trainer, she is not above contradicting herself.
She praised her team’s progress, especially defensively: After a 0-0 draw against hosts New Zealand, the Swiss went through to the round of 16 without conceding a goal, otherwise only Jamaica and Japan managed to do so. However, the offensive didn’t lack that much there: Gring’s team only scored two goals, which does not satisfy a former goalscorer. “Once again we didn’t use our transition situations well, we can’t afford that anymore from now on,” said Grings after the New Zealand game. She complained “at a high level”, but: she complained.
A lawsuit was also filed in Switzerland. Grings has recently been criticized in the media for her changes and also for the fact that she is not above taking out the best: Ramona Bachmann, for example, striker from Paris Saint-Germain, had to leave the field prematurely against New Zealand, she got it “from did a great job in terms of attitude,” but “forgot to shoot at goal,” said Grings. The lack of efficiency in front of goal is what bothers her the most from the bench, also because she – like the rest of Switzerland – is aware that there is a highly talented squad in the round of 16, with players like midfield director Lia Wälti from Arsenal FC or Ana-Maria Crnogorcevic from FC Barcelona.
The latter sat next to Grings as the player of the game at the press conference after the third group game and openly said that she also “didn’t quite understand” her substitution. Your coach didn’t care, the reasoning was similar to Bachmann’s: goalless. Can’t you practice that, Ms. Grings? “Yes. But at some point I can’t do more than explain it over and over again.”
Addressing her team directly, she is a continuation of what characterized Grings as a player – but which has also earned her a reputation for being a difficult character to deal with at times. However, in her role as Swiss national coach, she has so far successfully fought criticism with the same means with which she made it to the top as a player – and with which she still has big plans as a coach: with successes such as reaching the round of 16.
